Nigeria’s agriculture sector remains the country’s largest employer in 2023, with over 25 million individuals engaged in agriculture, forestry, and fishing activities representing 30.1% of the total workforce.
According to National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) report despite significant growth in other sectors, agriculture continues to be the backbone of the Nigerian workforce.
The data shows that 25,341,219 individuals are actively employed in the agriculture sector, far surpassing other industries such as wholesale and retail trade, which employs 23,133,193 persons or 27.5% of the workforce.
Gender distribution
Further disaggregation by gender indicates that men dominate the agricultural workforce, with 63.8% of those employed in agriculture being male, while 36.2% are female.
This trend of male dominance is even more pronounced in sectors like transportation and storage, where 98.7% of workers are male compared to just 1.3% female. The construction industry follows a similar pattern, with 97.9% of workers being male, while women constitute only 2.1% of the workforce.
On the other hand, the wholesale and retail trade sector presents a more balanced gender distribution, with females accounting for 67.5% of the workforce, while males represent 32.5%.
The report also indicates regional differences in employment patterns, with urban areas showing higher employment rates in sectors such as information and communication (89.5%), financial and insurance activities (88.6%), and professional, scientific, and technical activities (87.7%).
Rural areas, however, continue to dominate in agriculture, forestry, and fishing, with 68.7% of the rural workforce engaged in these activities.
What you should know
In 2023, Nigeria’s unemployment rate was reported at 5.4%, unemployment was higher among women at 6.0%, compared to 4.7% for men.
Nigeria’s working-age population in 2023 was 116.6 million, representing 53.8% of the total population. Of this, 52% were female, while 48% were male.
Several states in Nigeria experienced high unemployment rates in 2023, with Abia State recording the highest at 18.7%. The Federal Capital Territory (FCT) followed with 14.1%, while Rivers State reported 13.4% with other states like Gombe, Imo, and Ogun also showing notable unemployment rates.
Report reveals that there are about 40.2 million households– 70% of total households in the country involved in agriculture with the bulk of the population- 91% involved in crop production while around 48% were involved in livestock farming.
- The average Nigerian farming household cultivates 3.3 plots of land.
- Ebonyi state has the largest average farm size at 5.9 plots, while Lagos state has the smallest at 1.9 plots.
- Nigeria’s agricultural sector employs a significantly larger portion of the population compared to countries like the United States and Europe, where around 2% and 4.5% of the total population respectively is involved in agriculture.